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If you have ever been infertile, Mother’s Day Can Freakin’ Suck.

May 12, 2019 | By:

 

If you have ever been infertile, Mother’s Day Can Freakin’ Suck.   This is a picture of my mom.  She had Stage IV endometriosis (like me), and as a result, only had me.  She wanted more babies but she couldn’t have them and she and my father were TTC before IVF or infertility treatment was an option.  She died a little over a year ago and for some reason this Mother’s Day has ripped-off what my grief counselor calls the “grief-band-aid” on so many different issues.  I miss my mom today in a gut-wrenching, heart-breaking way that maybe I haven’t since she died.  Maybe that is because she suffered from infertility too and we had a special bond on Mother’s Day, understanding each other’s pain even though we both became mothers.  But today, there is a pain and anger in me that I haven’t felt in years.  If I see one more picture of a pregnant belly in my news feed I will scream.  Or read one more comment about the diaper’s women wear after giving birth.  Please stop reminding me of what I couldn’t do!  My grief counselor tells me that losing both my parents (as an only child) within 5 months is called “complicated grief” but she also said that loss of anyone brings up every other loss I have ever experienced, namely all my many, many miscarriages.  That would make it very complicated grief, I guess.  I might have reached a point where I was okay not trying to carry a baby in my belly — losing a baby at 5 months when I was in such fear and denial that I couldn’t even acknowledge I was pregnant — helped me move past the ever-present yearning to feel a baby kick inside me.  But that doesn’t mean that I don’t still hurt as a woman that I couldn’t carry a baby.  I have two beautiful children and should be able to celebrate today.  But I can’t.  I don’t have the one person who understood better than any other how conflicting Mother’s Day can be, in which to share the day, happiness and sadness tied together in a giant ball of conflicting emotions.  My family seems to have forgotten that I needed support today — that I will always need support on Mother’s Day.  I don’t blame my kids for not getting me a card or doing something special for me.  They are too young to understand how complicated this day is for a formerly infertile mom (who just lost her mom), and God-willing they will never understand the infertility piece.  My DH asked what was bothering me and I explained my headspace and then I told him I shouldn’t have to ask for cards or flowers or CHOCOLATE.  Just because our kids are teens doesn’t mean the pain of infertility is any less.  Apparently today, it is quite more, and this is one of the hardest Mother’s Days I have experienced.  I cannot control the internet, all the pictures of newborn babies (Archie’s feet, Amy and Gene), and pregnant bellies.  I can only control my response.  Which will be to stay off my phone, tablet and away from my computer.   My infertility grief-band-aid was ripped off today and it freakin’ sucks.  It doesn’t matter how your infertility resolves.  There always is a little piece of it in your heart.  My mom not being here today makes it harder to push the feelings aside, but no matter how much counseling we get, no matter how many babies we do or don’t ever have, Mother’s Day can be brutal.  Now where the Eff is the Chocolate in this house?

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The painful silence of recurrent pregnancy loss and stillbirth. A first hand perspective and perhaps finally, a voice.

February 15, 2013 | By:

The shrowd of silence around stillbirth and pregnancy loss finally is being lifted.  Someone is making a documentary about miscarriage, recurrent pregnancy loss, and stillbirth.  This morning I watched the trailer of “Still”  a documentary devoted to raising awareness of the pain of the loss of a pregnancy, a child born too soon, or a stillbirth.  I think “Still” may focus more on stillbirth or pre-term delivery, but some of the articles I read as I researched its production indicated that the documentary intends to address recurrent pregnancy loss and/or miscarriage more than is touched upon in this trailer.

As I watched the trailer I was reminded of a long call I had with a new client this week.  It is rare that I have a client who has a similar background to my own experience with infertility.  Like me she has experienced 12 unexplained pregnancy losses (although I sort of stopped counting about a year ago when I went through it again . . . something about hitting the number 13 and I really decided it didn’t matter how many I had, I have had enough, one is enough).  Only in addition to experiencing a number of first term (non-chemical) pregnancy losses, my new client also lost pregnancies in the second trimester and near the beginning of the third trimester.  We had a lengthy conversation about how isolating it is, how lonely it is, how there is no person other than your partner or spouse who “gets it” (and even then sometimes perhaps they don’t totally get it because it isn’t their body), and how the silence that surrounds pregnancy loss can engulf one’s life, one’s existence.  Our call also reminded me of a blog I posted about a gravestone I once saw that marked the death of fetus.  As I commented in that blog, it wasn’t a pro-life stunt.  It was a family who had been given permission not only to mark the death of their baby while in utero (or loss of their pregnancy) but to recognize all those other families that have suffered the same pain.  In silence.

Reproductive medicine has provided so many advances to assist infertile couples in achieving their dreamed of family but recurrent pregnancy loss remains largely unexplained.  While theories abound, there are far too many of us who don’t know why this happens to us, repeatedly.  Reproductive medicine and reproductive law now give us the option of having our biological child carried by someone who is likely to deliver that child when we can’t.  Indeed, the option to use a surrogate after experiencing pregnancy loss is perhaps the driving force behind at least half of my clients who come to me to assist them with legal agreements as they begin their journey using a surrogate.   As is the case with the call and the client I just mentioned.

As many of you know, in the absence of an explanation of why my babies die, I was too frightened that a surrogate might lose my child.  I couldn’t ask another woman to risk experiencing the pain I have dealt with so many times.  Adoption was always something my husband and I had wanted to pursue so when we were faced with the [dreaded] conversation where our doctor told us we were out of options other than surrogacy or adoption, it was a no-brainer for us.  It was going to be adoption.  And as one of the women in the trailer for “Still” points out, I wouldn’t turn back the clock or make different decisions; because without those pregnancy losses I wouldn’t be parenting the two beautiful children I have now.  I cannot imagine a life without these particular little souls in it.  It seems like a heartbreaking price to pay but as I told my new client, one day when this is all over and you are holding your baby in your arms, it will make sense and you will know that but for all that came before (all 12 of those horrendously difficult pregnancy losses) this little baby wouldn’t be yours.

But as she journeys toward that day where she hopefully does feel that sense of peace and gratitude for the child in her arms, she is left with a huge void.  She has no one to talk to.  I had no one to talk to.  Even my best IVF friends didn’t understand how I felt.  Excuse me:  how I FEEL.  I still feel pain on a day that one of my longtime friend’s celebrates, the day she heard the heartbeat of each of the babies she was carrying.  I don’t begrudge her that joy.  I celebrate with her.  But for me, inside, it always is a reminder of the miscarriage that I experienced just a few days earlier.  My client and I share a special bond, one of knowing what each carries inside her and the thoughts that creep into our mind throughout the day.  Thoughts that largely go un-shared with anyone.

Will “Still” do justice to this topic, to this diagnosis, to the countless women and men who have endured the loss of a life growing inside them or one that came into the world far too early to survive?  I think so.  I hope so.  Because I would like nothing more than for women like me who are going through what I went through, women like my new client, to have a voice in the reproductive community.  To have doctors pay attention to our kind of infertility.  To have better resources and support groups.  To just plain have a voice to express their pain.  Amazing options for family building notwithstanding, the pain associated with recurrent pregnancy loss, miscarriage, and stillbirth shouldn’t continue to be shrouded in silence.

And so today I thank the people behind this documentary entitled “Still”.  THANK YOU for initiating a dialogue that is long overdue.

And one final note, to all those physicians who have dedicated their careers to exploring the mystery of recurrent pregnancy loss . . . THANK YOU.

 

If you would like to watch the trailer click here 

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